


All's Faire

by the merienes tranch (lilhalphys)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (oh its one of these baby), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Found Family, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Scholastic Book Fairs, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 07:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16512050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilhalphys/pseuds/the%20merienes%20tranch
Summary: Springwell is your average simple, well-to-do town with a mediocre high school sports team cheered on by unmotivated high school students. Most passersby remember Springwell for its Waffle House - which residents will attest is quite good.Springwell is your average simple, well-to-do town. Until it isn't.They, the seven of them, get together out of necessity. Out of secrecy. But, like most things, their town included, it isn't quite so simple.





	All's Faire

**Author's Note:**

> hoo boy. hoo. boy. this is debatably inspired by taz amnesty, and most of my more concrete ideas formed as i was listening to A by la dispute. but! long form supernatural aus! yay! please enjoy!

There is a place, near the woods bordering the town of Springwell, where the grass is thin and the houses are empty. There is one spot, a nearly perfect circle about six feet across, where there is no grass at all. The dirt there is wet, dark, but it hasn’t rained there in days. At four points, two closer to one end of the circle and two closer to the other, there are spokes driven into the ground, each with a matching leather cuff attached to a small chain. 

One of them has been chewed through.

In the ramshackle house near this clearing, a commotion can be heard. The candlelight from inside highlights silhouettes in the windows, people being slammed into walls and screaming as a blade cuts across their chests, limbs flying by echoed by horrific screaming. There is one final clattering of metal on stone before the clearing goes silent. 

The crickets and owls hold their breath as the door to the house creaks and then slams open, a figure bursting forth into the night. Blood stains their clothes, and they run carefully, cautiously, but still nearly falling over every other step. But run they do, first away from the clearing, and then towards the town of Springwell. 

The moon is full, and her lights guides them home.

-

Dairon picks up the paper sitting on her desk, scans it for the fifth time this hour-long meeting, and sighs in that particular way that Beau just hates.

“I honestly don’t know what to do with you at this point. And don’t-” she puts up a finger as Beau opens her mouth to speak, “-tell me to put you in easier classes. You do fine enough on your tests; that isn’t the problem here.”

“What? Don’t I ‘apply myself’ enough for you?” Beau says, knowing and almost wincing at how much of a brat she sounds. With a sigh, “It’s just all bullshit.”

Dairon sets the paper back on the desk. “I do not disagree. But you need to endure this,” she winces, rolls her eyes, “bullshit for two more years, Beauregard. Three if you fail enough classes this semester.”

Beau decides in that moment that the clock on the wall behind Dairon’s desk is the most interesting thing in the room to look at.

Dairon huffs out another sigh. “Tell me, Beauregard. If I let you out of my office right now, what are the chances that you actually go back to class?”

“You can probably guess.”

“Then,” Dairon says with an unsettling smile, “I have a job for you. There’s a group of juniors and seniors setting up and running the Book Fair at the elementary school for this afternoon. Why don’t you go help them out?”

-

“You know,” Fjord says just moments after Beau arrives in the cafeteria, having barely been able to convince Dairon to let her eat lunch before she leaves, “You could have just said her speech really got to you, that you were gonna study hard for the rest of the afternoon.”

Beau scoffs, gnawing at her granola bar like that will get her out of this damn punishment. “Easy for you to say, Mister Silvertongue.”

Jester smushes her cheek against one hand, looking sadder while eating a donut than any person Beau has ever met. “It isn’t fair! I’d rather go sell books and shitty erasers to little babies instead of going to my stupid algebra class.” She huffs, and then takes another bite of her donut.

“You know, Jess,” Beau says, “I’m sure the setter-uppers of this Book Carnival are all, like, nerds and shit. You and your-”

Jester’s chair screeches backwards, the sound piercing Beau’s ears above the rest of the cafeteria chatter. “My big muscles!”

Beau stands up as well, the excitement and growing volume of their conversation getting her heart pumping. “Hell yeah! You’re so fuckin’ strong, Jess!”

“I’m gonna carry so many fucking books! Aaugh!!”

After a moment, Fjord interrupts what eventually devolves into a friendly shouting match with a hesitant cough. “You know, Jester, I think this is a good idea, but you should probably ask Ms. Dairon if you’re even allowed to go.”

“Oh, she’ll be cool,” Beau says, clapping a bouncing Jester on the shoulder. “She’s the coolest.”

“Of course of course!” She turns on her heel towards Dairon’s office, shouting all the way, “Ms. Dairon! Ms. Dairon! Me and Fjord want to-”

“Now, hang on, Jester-”

-

The benches outside Springwell High are made of old, rusty metal. They are always, without fail, either too hot or too cold to sit on comfortably, but Fjord is beginning to realize that that isn’t the kind of thing that stops Beau, who is currently laying sprawled on the one closest to the pickup lane where their little group of three is waiting for their ride.

“Technically,” Jester says, bouncing about between the heels and balls of her feet. “You probably shouldn’t be sitting there at all.”

“I cannot be contained by any law.”

“Okay, but I do not want you to get tetanus and die, Beau.”

-

Their ride arrives seven minutes after that, and three minutes after Beau finally got her wits together enough to get off the bench. 

Fjord’s brow furrows as it approaches, an almost entirely black van with tinted windows. As it gets closer, Jester notices that the sides are not all one solid color, but rather layers and gradients that make the sides almost look like stormy skies. 

The door slides open, and Jester gives a full body gasp, hands on her cheeks and everything, and Jester is enamored.

There is a person leaning against the doorframe, their shoulders pressing on one end and their foot shoved up against the other, their posture bored but their expression enamored. As they stick their head a bit further out of the van, the sunlight shimmers against their dark skin, and Jester cannot quite tell whether it’s glitter or magic.

“Well, what are you waiting for! C’mon, in, in, we get our first round of third graders in an hour!”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> chapters of this will likely be shorter than other things i write (else they would come out like. once every six months) so please be patient! kudos if you liked and comment if you have something to say! thank you!


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